CITETD-IEVEDER IN INDIA AND ENGLAND.
NEW attention bas been drawn to an old crime in an extensive dis- trict of British India, ". as large as an European kingdom." In 1851, Major Lake, the Commissioner of a district in the Punjaub, discovered a practice of murdering female children; and the atten- tion of the Government has been drawn to the case with a view of putting down the offence. The usual auxiliary to the action of Government, however, was wanting. It was difficult to find a prosecutor, where all society shared the crime, and did not even think it criminal ; so little criminal that the subject is freely dis- cussed amongst the natives themselves, and is indeed adopted by some of them as a distinction.
The first motive was of a mixed kind—avarice and pride. A Rajpoot of high rank must give to his daughter, if she marries, a great dowry—ten or fifteen lacs of rupees or more. At one time, perhaps, the Rajpoots may have been fond of their daughters, though the value for human life has never ranked so high in In- dia as it does amongst ourselves ; as we may see by the practice of Suttee, the sacrifice of Juggernaut, and by the ready destruction of life to gratify the smallest caprices. If in the Hindoo the contempt for life is not checked even by self-preservation, so the instinct of daughter-preservation appears to have yielded long ago to the in- stincts of avarice. The Rajpoot, who must give a large dowry to his daughter if he disposed of her in marriage, shared the same feeling which English country gentlemen have sometimes expe- rienced when they have thought the daughters were a serious bur- den; but the Rajpoot has a resource which the English gentleman does not find to his hand—he may murder his daughter. A provi- dent Rajpoot would foresee the dilemma, and would naturally. save the subsistence of the daughter, and much trouble, by disposing of her betimes. Heim the alternative to a splendid marriage becomes a confirmed practice of infanticide. A practice which is attached to rank and wealth naturally becomes fashionable ; and hence it has befallen, that whereas some few Rajpoots murder their daughters, rather than alienate immense portions of their immense property, a larger number murder their daughters not because there is the same.necestsity but because the murder of daughters is a mark of distine.tion.• Infanticide has extended to all classes of the community within the district above-mentioned, as the use of silver or Britisk.ailver forks has extended to the humblest eating- houses in England, the practice in both cases being recommended by its convenience and its gentility. It may safely be said, however; of that community which in- dulges the convenience of infanticide, that it is not in the highest moral or intellectual State, and that it is so far debarred from a de- gree of happiness which is not ferbidden to human kind by its natural condition. The alien Government has taken the practice to heart more than the natives themselves, and kr. Rallies is understood to have suggested a particular kind of remedy. As the Friend of India observes, a London magistrate would increase the vigilance of the police, and would try to "put down" the crime by the criminal law. Evidently, such a process would be unsuited to the country where the posse commitatus would be all against the sheriff; and the plan actually adopted is quite different. Some degree of shame has begun to dawn amongst the people. Ad- vantage is to be taken of this feeling : they are to be convened by the representation of their chiefs; the horror of the British at the practice is to be distinctly stated to them; a census is' to be drawa up, distinguishing the male and female children ; and the chiefs are to be invited to make a declaration against the practice, and probably also to adopt new rules for marriage. The practice would' go far to prove how little the Indians are advanced towards that condition which would fit them for self-government, as the reliance of the British in the force of advice and in the candour of the na- tive mind proves how readily the Hindoo can adapt,himself to the qualifications for self-government, and how well the British author- ities know their adaptability. But while we teach our Hindoo brethren, and rather look down upon them for their want of teaching, may we not look at home, and ask ourselves, not only whether we have crime amongst us, but whether our methods of correcting it have been more intelli- gent than those ascribed to the London magistrate ? We fear that the London magistrate is a very fair type of the teacher. To prove that we have crime, we need not stir an inch from this ac- count of the practice in the Punjaub ; for in the same column of the Times where this account from the Friend of India is quoted, is another account of infanticide in Sussex —an individual 'ease, no doubt, but belonging to a class which has been known to pre- vail in Essex, the county of husband-poisoning, in Lancashire, and in many English counties. It is true that the members of our peerage do not seek to sustain their honourable repute by stifling their little children ; true that country gentlemen cannot >go to such lengths for disposing of their cadets, male and female; but it is also true that a very large proportion of the English popula- tion stands convicted either of deliberate murder or of the homicide which consists in starvation, neglect, and depravity. As.yet we have trusted more to the criminal law for checking that great social crime. We are only now beginning to discuss, with much solemnity in public conference, whether a more intelligent plan cannot be adopted with regard to a very limited _portion of the population—one certainly that does not indulge in infanticide, 'but consists of the young themselves. With regard to those who are guilty of child-murder, how many are there that, in the first place, do not know, any more than the Rajpoots, the full enormity of the
crime ? How many more who do not know the mode in which they can avoid it ; for too often it comes to them in the shape of an apparent necessity ? Perhaps the experiment which we are work- ing out in Rajpootanah may be useful as an example of ourselves to ourselves ; and we may acquire the opportunity, of teaching the English people how to forego the practice of child-murder.
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